Charles Whitman ////// 229 | Forensic Files

foreign [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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to be seeing myself my friend [Music] on today's show I'll be drinking Guinness or what I like to call the
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was always the in-between between uh a dark beer like Guinness but it was always a bit nice brown ale and if
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Generation Y we decided to do a little bit of a Wife Swap if you know what I mean don't worry we won't hurt him so
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Sunday July 31st 1966 6 45 p.m I don't understand what it is that compels me to type this letter Perhaps it is to leave
some vague reason for the actions I have recently performed I don't really understand myself these days I'm
supposed to be an average reasonable and intelligent young man however lately I can't recall when it started I've been
a victim of many unusual and irrational thoughts these thoughts constantly recur
and it requires a tremendous mental effort to concentrate on useful and Progressive tasks
in March when my parents made a physical break I noticed a great deal of stress I
consulted a Dr cochrom at the University Health Center and asked him to recommend
someone that I could consult with about some psychiatric disorders I felt I had talked with the doctor once for about
two hours and tried to convey to him my fears that I felt come overwhelmingly violent impulses after one season I
never saw the doctor again and since then I've been fighting my mental turmoil alone and seemingly to no avail
after my death I wish that an autopsy would be performed on me to see if there's any visible physical disorder
I've had some tremendous headaches in the past and have consumed two large bottles of Excedrin in the past three
months it was after much thought that I decided to kill my wife Kathy tonight after I pick her up from work at the
telephone company I love her dearly she has been as fine as a wife to me as any man could ever hope to have I
cannot rationally pinpoint any specific reason for doing this I don't know whether it is selfishness
or if I don't want her to have to face the embarrassment my actions would surely cause her
at this time though the prominent reason in my mind is that I truly do not consider this world worth living in and
am prepared to die I do not want to leave her to suffer alone in it I intend to kill her as painlessly as possible
similar reasons provoked me to take my mother's life also I don't think the poor woman has ever
enjoyed life as she is entitled to she was a simple young woman who married a very possessive and dominating man all
of my life as a boy until I ran away from home to join the Marine corpse the rest of the letter is handwritten and
illegible [Music] thank you foreign how you doing tonight Captain I'm doing great awesome thanks for asking no
problem tonight's case is something that I've been a little obsessed with for a while sadly it's because of the rise of
mass shootings here in America right and I realize that this isn't the original mass shooting that America ever saw but
I think it could be one of the most popular ones or well-known ones do you think yeah definitely so this is the
case of Charles Whitman and the University of Texas Tower shooting or Texas tower sniper is what
he was known as and on July 31st 1966 Charles Whitman sits down to write the letter that you just heard he's
not understanding these I guess uh impulses he's having he's struggling with I guess homicidal tendencies in this
fantasy of going up on this Tower and gunning people down yeah he definitely has some
anger management problems just a few and uh he decides that he's going to start with his own mother his mother had
recently moved to his his part of town and he went over to her house and went inside and bludgeoned her and then
ended up stabbing her to death yeah what's interesting is after he beat her to death he actually took her body and
placed it back into her bed to make it look like she was sleeping yeah he put a sheet over her
and then he wrote do not disturb on a note put it on the front door like you do at a hotel I guess uh but this is her
home I'm just thinking about this and I'm thinking I've never seen anyone put a do not disturb sign on a door to a
home and I'm kind of freaked out that he thought that this would deter people uh
so now if I ever see somebody with a do not disturb sign on their door I'm definitely calling in a welfare check on
them but yeah yeah just instantly call 911 yeah foreign his wife is at work she's working a six
to ten shift and he goes and gets her and takes her home he had planned to murder his wife
in a way where she wouldn't suffer at least that's what he thought on his head so you would think
pull out a gun shoot her but instead he will end up stabbing her to death which to me is totally not a quick way
to die it's a brutal way to die and it's a horrible way to die right according to
him happily married but he doesn't want his next actions to fall back on his wife or his mother and we'll go into
more of that later but yeah because when he returns to his typewriter to continue
this note he claims that he killed his mom and his uh wife just to spare them yeah from what was going to take place
now what I wonder is he obviously wasn't trying to spare their life but he was maybe trying to to uh spare
their like what I guess embarrassment or the fact that these individuals would be
connected to him after he did this Tower shoot you know I know with his mother he felt that she
didn't have the best life so it was almost a mercy killing but his wife she had a she was married
to him they were happily married self-medicating at this point and he's taking methamphetamines yeah might not
be thinking too straight so I I you know I can analyze what he was thinking but why he chose
the way he would do this is a whole other uh question yeah so after he's murdered his wife
he starts collecting things and he goes and writes some bad checks and buys some
weapons he already owns a bunch of weapons but he's going to purchase more and he has a Foot Locker
he was ex-military so that's what they're used to carrying a lot of their stuff around is a Foot
Locker and he gets rope he gets food he gets water yeah they they claim that he had enough supplies for two weeks and
then 700 rounds of ammo and again I think anyone that's paid attention lately you know that a
mass shooting is not going to last very long this guy was planning for the Long Haul he figured he would be doing this
for a while that's kind of creepy right yeah well you think if you continue shooting from a tower and for two weeks
that if they don't come and get you and kill you that at some point people are just not going to go around that Tower
yeah you'd think this is the Arsenal that we know that he had he had a Luger nine
millimeter pistol he had a Smith and Wesson 357 Magnum uh revolver had a uh an M1 carbine rifle
a Remington Model 141 it's a 35 caliber rifle a Remington 700 six millimeter rifle Sears Model 60
semi-automatic shotgun it's 12 gauge just a lot of guns and then he had a uh a 25 caliber pistol
as a I guess his final backup this guy believed he had like 10 hands yeah so he's got all of this and he packs it all
up in his foot locker and decides I'm gonna go down to this Tower and set up all my weapons and
start gunning people down but he has to get there first and it's not the it's not like you can just show up with all
this and walk up there and No One's Gonna notice so he's got a off you skate a little bit and he's gotta use some
social engineering to get in so he arrives at the parking lot he says he's like a research student or
something to that effect right yeah it's weird because I actually saw a documentary where they talk about him
wearing like repairment like a repairman outfit like a janitor yeah yeah but then
for some reason when he gets there he's like this might not work so he tells the
guy at the parking lot I'm I'm a researcher so he's allowed to park in the parking lot
he gets a dolly he puts everything in his you know Foot Locker and he covers it up and he puts it on the dolly
and he wanders right into the building jumps on the elevator and goes up to the top floor because he's trying to make it
to the rooftop different reports will say 27th or 28th floor but regardless he has to carry all this upstairs once he
gets there but he he comes across Edna who is like the receptionist and initially he he tells her I'm here to
repair something and she doesn't really buy his story and she says she needs to call someone
to verify and when she turns her head to call he actually beats her and drags her
bloodied body like behind a couch and hides her there he doesn't kill her or he doesn't shoot her right away he's
actually beating her first and then he's going to the stairwell because you have to go up these this
flight to get up to the rooftop and it's like three I think three or four flights
of stairs that he has to drag this you know Dolly with all his crap on and when he's going back a family shows
up that's wanting to go up on the rooftop also and do the uh the tour so now he's stuck in this situation
where he's just beat this poor old lady and then there's this family there and that's when he starts shooting and he
opens fire on the on the family first yeah he ends up killing two of the family members not really for sure how
many he wounded but I know that he killed two the first guy is I hope I'm saying this what right but it's uh Mike
gabar that's he's actually a Cadet for the Air Force and so we start shooting and he wounds multiple family members
and kills two of them instantly once he figures they've retreated or they're no longer in in his line of sight
he actually goes back over to Edna and shoots her and finishes her off and then he
ascends these stairwells and uh it's said that because he had this heavy Dolly with all the stuff on it every
single step made a huge bang sound and people heard it in the building and didn't quite know what it was but it was
him dragging this dolly up this flight of stairs have you seen footage of like what his Viewpoint would be looking down
off the top yeah yeah because it's it's it's high enough to give me the heebie-jeebies as far as like because
I'm afraid of heights so when they start showing like what he would be seeing when he looked down on
people it's a lot higher up than you would think and sadly it gave him a really good field of vision and kill zones yeah
to you know go on this you know Rampage here well right unless but let's stay on
that point for a second because yes good vantage point but you have to be a pretty good shot
what do you think yeah and uh he was ex-military he was in the Marines he got uh an expert badge uh which is not the
highest badge you can get but the second highest right so he's pretty good yeah and he you know the Marines they have a
pretty good their test especially back then I'm sure was pretty hard to pass when I was in the Army I actually hit 40
out of 40 but I don't think I had to shoot at as many targets as the Marines back in the 1943 did once he's up on the
tower he distributes his guns on all four sides and it's like an observation deck but there's a square in
the middle and then there's the perimeter so you can only walk around on the perimeter of this and there's little
gaps and holes in the the concrete rails so he's shoving the barrels of these weapons through
and making sure that no matter what side he's on there's always a weapon there and then he's got his uh his rifle and
his hand that's going to be his primary weapon that the the basically the way to
think of this is think of Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks and Sleepless in Seattle and think about the last scene that's
kind of how the tower is set up and another thing this allows him to do is you know you have a shotgun and
you're this high up shotgun's not going to kill somebody possibly at that range or it's going to
be really hard to hit someone with a shotgun rifles they uh they have the range or even as pistols
but one of the shotguns is just laying there sticking out as he walks past it he'll just pull the trigger and it goes
off and then he's around the corner shooting at somebody else so it gives the illusion that there are multiple
people up on this observation deck firing what's also interesting about the position he's in is I believe that these
walls are concrete and there are over 30 centimeters thick so basically he has the ability to
shoot and the only thing that that law enforcement could shoot back at would be like the top of his head yeah so even if
they shot the wall that he was right behind it was not going to penetrate through the wall no
and when he starts firing uh the few police officers that are around the you know they were issued revolvers and
shotguns at the time and you know 38 caliber pistol it's I mean the bullets gonna make it up there
but then once it hits that that cement block that you know concrete wall it's it's not doing anything and the
tiny Target to to pinpoint and it's just not going to work out for them at all because they're outgunned and they he
has the higher ground so they can't they can't do anything one of his first victims that he shoots when he gets on
this Tower is a pregnant woman well and this shows you how big of a piece of [ __ ] this
Charles guy is because he it's not like he shoots her in the head or the arm or the chest or anything
he goes right down and shoots her and her pregnant belly and it's it's almost I mean no I won't even say
it's almost it is his intent to shoot her in the belly because he's a good shot he'll make some other shots up here
that are far further distance through tiny holes so he knows where he's shooting her yeah and of course people
are running out to save her and her boyfriend and they are now targets and this is
what snipers do that first shot isn't always the shot to kill somebody sometimes that first shot
is to wound somebody and then all your buddies come out to save you and that gives the sniper more targets to pick
off yeah so it's a disabling shot well and he and that I believe he picked a pregnant woman because more people are
likely to run to the aid of her exactly than than anybody else he goes on and shoots multiple people and there's like
three friends that are from like the Peace Corps that are just going out for lunch
guns them down it's just peop random people throughout their day and I think it's I don't know what 20
minutes into the shooting that now everyone down below understands what's happening and are starting to are
starting to take cover starting to to duck out hide well and that's what's strange is uh you know if
you've been ever if you've ever been outside playing at night and you hear possibly a gunfire or maybe a firework
or something sometimes it's hard to figure out where it's coming from so it sounds crazy but it's like you
said it takes people over 20 minutes to kind of figure out one that there's somebody shooting from
the tower and because there's so many people that are going out in open areas looking around
trying to figure out where this fire is coming from there's a uh a journalist named Richard Hill who hears that
somebody's been shot at the tower so he grabs his pen and paper and drives on down
because he doesn't understand that there's a sniper and so he gets there he jumps out of his
car and he sees a bunch of students like huddled underneath like an awning or something and they're telling him you
know like take cover and they're like you better not walk out there and they're actually laughing when they say
it they're saying man you better take cover you better get out of here and Richard doesn't it doesn't click you
know it's he doesn't take them seriously because he's not understanding the situation and I hate to say it but I'm
kind of like these kids I might laugh at the wrong time when something's just so
atrocious or just ridiculous like what we're now huddled underneath this awning uh so well it's just a nervous laughter
Richard is walking and he's being shot at now because he didn't quite get it he was
actually just going to report about probably Edna yeah and didn't know um and there's
have you ever find yourself in a situation like this there's line of sight and if they can see if you can see
them then they can see you and then there's cover and concealment concealment just means you're behind I
don't know a car or an awning so the person can't seal can't see you but cover right is you're actually behind a
wall or behind an embankment that gives you protection so a lot of these people are just
concealing themselves behind just chairs and whatnot and if Charles sees them behind
something and sees them moving he can still fire upon them and that bullet's going to go right through
whatever they're hiding behind and hit them [Music] [Music] thank you all right we're back cheers mates well
do you know if they knew how many shooters there were in the town they didn't know until the final moments and
they assumed yeah they definitely assumed there was more than one there was more than one because of the amount
of Fire coming from the tower the amount of gunshots coming because like I said you would just pull the trigger you know
on a 12 gauge shotgun on one side and then run over the other side and take take a pop shot at somebody how you
watched the YouTube clip of this yeah yes it's like weird because at first it seems like a movie I mean like this
clock tower it kind of has that hint of um Back to the Future yeah the Clock Tower
and and so when you see it in black and white and all you see is the gun smoke coming and it's so unclear who's
shooting or if there is a shooter almost looks like it's coming out of nowhere and when you hear multiple shots fired
in quick secession you you don't assume that's one person and then when you have
the police officers returning fire you can't really make out how many people are shooting how many perpetrators there
are it's just Madness uh he ends up hitting an electrician named Roy Dell Schmidt
from 500 yards away it says five football fields this guy had been hiding behind his car
for over 30 minutes since this since the shooting started and he thought it's safe I'll Stand Up Now was there anybody
as the shooting um was taking place that ever said this possibly could be Charles Whitman no they that from my
knowledge uh they were just responding to the incident and they had no idea that his wife and mother were
at their homes well because he because he put a do not disturb sign on the mother's door so nobody Disturbed
it there it is that's why his note worked uh he shot another he shot another man that was behind a uh I guess
like a construction barricade or a spindle and there was just like a small like six inch gap between the wood
and he was able to hit this man [ __ ] that's a good yeah it's it's just brutality and he's very efficient at it
so the shooting lasts about 96 minutes from start so like roughly like the the length of a Judd Apatow film you like my
awful references I said sleeveless in Seattle uh Back to the Future are now Jed out
I'm like Sleepless and [ __ ] Seattle we have a shooter or multiple Shooters law enforcement doesn't know but at some
point when you have 30 over 30 centimeters of concrete basically blocking the psychopath you have to enter
the tower now you're going to get to go up and the elevator or you can go by stairs but at some point you're going to
have threes three floors that you have to go through just by stare to get to the observation deck
where the the shots are being fired but now you're gonna you're gonna have to send officers in there and you don't
know how many shooters there are the when you get up to that observation deck there's a lot of windows
so you're exposed to the shooter still if the shooter looks inside he can see you and there's very little
uh cover or concealment for you when you first step out onto that observation deck how many officers do they send up
to the observation deck well this one police officer named Ramiro Martinez he was off duty that day and he heard
about the shooting so he came up and he doesn't he he's just showing up uh and it sucks because these officers when
they're going there they're having to walk through the dead bodies to get to the Tower there's no real concealment
for them they're having to zigzag and run to the tower to get there well Martinez he's going up the elevator
and he gets off and he runs into three other police officers three other guys uh a guy named Alan Crum Houston McCoy
and there's special he's a public safety agent and his name's Deb Cohen public safety agent
I'm assuming he's a a security guard yeah for the campus yeah but can you imagine you you have to have the biggest
cojones to decide hey I'm going to go up there I have no clue how many shooters there are
but I'm going to go up there who's coming with and you got four guys and being that this is Texas people you know
Don't Mess with Texas they all have guns so Cohen had actually gone home and got
his rifle brought it back and gave it to one of the officers I'm still waiting to
read a story where the law enforcement officer had an elephant gun yeah it seems like a great time for one and
this scenario well the interesting thing about this is we don't have the militarization of police until much
later yet here's a perfect example of why they might need rifles or they might need armored vehicles or stuff like that
or pretty much a SWAT team is what I'm looking for to respond to this not the Beat cop with a pistol we'll break down
how they decide to enter the towers observation deck all three of them came out onto the observation deck and one of
them stood at the door and faced you know whatever Direction while the other two
started going around Each corner looking for the shooter so the one guy staying there he's he's there just to see if if
this shooter comes around the corner he's there to to Ambush him so the other yeah these other two guys they're going
around Each corner and they have to expose themselves they have to whip out there
yeah no they have to lean that seems like a very weird law enforcement practice they have to lean we're gonna
be careful with your words here they have to lean lean to the left yeah I don't know how you said it you
know you can't make that [ __ ] up and they check the first corner coast is clear
they go to the next corner and they they're hearing the shots and they're getting louder and louder so
they know they're you know they know they're getting close but again they think there might be two guys up here so
they're they're kind of freaked out and they see Charles as sort of gunning somebody down so
they come up and one of them shoots him and the other one jumps down to his knees and they both
fire upon him and hitting Charles and Charles had to actually sort of turned towards them at this point to engage
them right and and they claim that he's they give credit to Houston McCoy I think for the the kill but like we
know the full story I think they're I think not only both of them should be you know responsible for the kill but
also the third guy that got onto the observation deck as well but I think they credit Houston McCoy because of his
name yeah and if he was the first guy to shoot whatever it is um but they they want to make sure this
guy's down so they they double tap them they go over and they give him a a fatal shot or the execution shot just
to make sure and I don't blame him one bit because this guy's been terrorizing this entire
city almost for the last you know hour and a half and just in case he's not quite dead they
finish him off and they meet back up with you know their their squad just to make sure that
there's nobody else but they're pretty sure now like okay we got them and they actually are having to duck because
the police down on the ground are still shooting at them so a few bullets actually Ricochet by their heads while
after yeah that would be my luck I'd go in there I'd kill the shooter and then I'd get shot they have to inform people
fairly quickly to cease fire the shooters down and and sadly as soon as they get the
word out everybody comes pouring out of the buildings and they just knew that they'd killed this one guy up on the
observation deck they weren't too sure if there was anyone else in the tower somewhere else on another floor could
you imagine hundreds of people coming out and now they're targets too if if this
wasn't the only guy right but at some point you have to come out you know when they say
the coast is clear at some point you have to take your chances I just I would just assume that there would be more you
know with the large amount of police presence they'd be like everyone stay down everyone stay where you're at Let's
uh make sure that this is all good yeah and you also wonder about if there was a second shooter
and you let all these individuals out now you have hundreds and hundreds of people if there was a second shooter
that somehow got from the top of the tower all the way to outside again that they could disappear I didn't even think
of that they could just blend right in I mean that's what the Parkland shooter guy did he was able to walk away and he
not picked up until later so after hearing doll clear people are out and they now have
identified Charles Whitman and they're going to his home where they're going to find his dead wife
yeah Kathleen and they're gonna find his murdered mother also and that's where they're going to find his note and
is it fair to say it's a suicide yeah I would say it's a suicide note uh or is it a homicide oh there you go you
know uh it's almost both I call American Mass Shooters our version of a suicide bomber but they are able to kill a lot
more people because they can shoot at them as opposed to just trying to set themselves off in the middle of a crowd
but in this note he mentions uh that he loved his wife he mentions that she was a wonderful person
and that he had these horrible thoughts and that he hopes that they can do an autopsy on him and look at his brain and
see if there was anything that caused him to do this and they do do that and they end up finding a small tumor
they say it's the size of a book of a pecan or a pecan depending on where you're at
uh yeah it's not a tumor uh but it's pushing up between his Thalamus his hypothalamus and if this is all you
know about the story well hey this guy was happily married everything was great and then he had homicidal thoughts and
he goes on this Rampage and he has a tumor case closed right yeah it's it's it's one of those things where it gives
you an answer and then also makes you on some level feel bad for Charles Whitman
like maybe he couldn't control himself but I think there's evidence to point that maybe this tumor could be a
percentage of the cause but not the full cause I always have a scale of nature versus nurture when it comes to any Mass
shooter serial killer whatever and I always think there's a blend I don't think it's always nurture or it's always
nature I always think it's a percentage of well we've had a lot of you know there's a lot of people
that uh struggle and fight every day that have cancerous tumors and they're not going around and shooting
individuals but the brain works in mysterious ways so you wonder if it just grows at a certain point if this makes
people more capable of this kind of action but I think of the DC snipers or the Parkland shooter or a lot of these
other people and it's not proven that they all had tumors a lot of them are either radicalized or just did they have
any idea of when this tumor started they said it was pretty malignant and that it
had there's disagreements about this tumor a lot of disagreements and some people say it's not even a tumor or they
don't even believe it exists so you're right when you said it's not a tumor uh well and maybe the reason why again
why would somebody claim that there was a tumor when there wasn't well we gotta go back to the idea that Whitman was an
officer he was a U.S marine and that would explain away this crazy behavior this psychotic behavior it also
explained away why our the Marines did nothing about it did nothing about this person
so it gives them kind of a let them off the hook way out by saying well we didn't know anything about this and
Charles wasn't crazy there was no sign of that he had a tumor but when we look at Charles's upbringing in his childhood
there's some things in there and uh his father was a domestic abuser well let's start
with the fact that Charles was a handsome young kid he had like blonde hair I think blue
eyes kind of like the All-American boy youngest Eagle Scout in America I think of the youngest kid to ever become a
eagle scout at the time which that's pretty cool he is the quintessential All-American boy
uh I'm assuming it's because his father pushed him he he was overbearing I wanted to as like another excuse like
well this guy was beaten by his father um but back in the 50s there was a lot more
physical punishment that happened so he's beaten by his father he hated his father
and there's there's an incident that's talked about a lot where when he got older a teenager he uh
oh the one where he's 19. story when he comes home and his dad uh so upset with him that he
beats him to a bloody pulp and then tries to drown him in the pool yeah and well here's the thing though
it's like I mean he he did have a father he had a mother they had a pool things could have been worse this is
true but he is living in a very hostile environment and his he's watching his mother get
beaten and verbally abused emotionally abused this is just the most unhealthy living
situation for anyone to be in and it's his father that is the the evil one in this whole thing and he
hates his father with a passion right he seems to be one of those fathers too where it's like no matter what you do
it's not good enough like you become like the youngest Eagle Scout in American history at that point and it's
not good enough for your father no I mean he's the youngest Eagle Scout yet he still gets
uh you know almost killed for going out and drinking and this is the amount of pressure
that's put on Charles so he he joins the Marines but even before this there was rumors of
him bullying kids and and basically you know he he would get bullied by his father so what did he
do he went and bullied you know other kids and I think we've all seen that I mean I remember one time
um in high school there was this kid that he would fight anybody and I thought what what the heck is wrong with
him and then I heard that uh every time that he got in a fight that his dad would hear about his dad would
beat him up real bad and then you you almost wonder why the heck is he getting in a fight then every time he gets in
trouble for it he gets beat up but it's almost like maybe some kind of like self-punishment
yeah and it's it's a cycle of violence not everybody that's been abused is going to go on and abuse others but
it it is a little bit of a stereotype it does happen a lot I actually wish his dad was a little bit
more of a monster and would have drowned him in that pool because if they would have then we
wouldn't have the 17 innocent people dead we want to have the pregnant lady dead we want to have the 30 31 wounded
people I understand your logic but when he was doing this to Charles Charles was
innocent but I get it if if I went back in a time machine and yeah yeah which one yeah which one would you pick Justin
come on you want to pick the Dead kid in the pool are you going to pick the 17 dead people I'm gonna have to swallow
swallow my pride a little bit and uh one over multiple he uh he joined the military and
it was during the time of uh wasn't it the Cuban crisis Charles joined the Marines
they they said that he was actually really well liked and probably had an IQ of 138
which isn't bad and then after joining the Marines is that's when he's actually going to go uh to Austin and start at
the University of Texas this is where he also is going to marry his wife and then he actually goes back into the
Marines during the Cuban but he's still crisis it's when he's meeting his wife like his first stint with the Marines
he's exemplary he is awesome clean record he gets Awards all the stuff he's in a very regiment regimented
environment and I think that's what he needed yeah but see this is one one I wonder if the
tumor actually started or if there was maybe not even tumor as much as there possibly could be just some mental
illness that started rearing its ugly head because like we said he's in the military
then he goes to college he gets married then he goes back and he goes from well-liked smart hard-working to yeah
they can't stay he's uh he's gambling he's drinking he's acting as a loan shark and lending other soldiers money and if
they don't pay him or he gives them such a high interest rate that they can never
pay him that he'll go and assault them it's like what and it gets so bad that they end up discharging him and then
that's when he goes he decides well I'm going to go back to Austin and I'm going
to show them I'm going to enroll into school and I'm going to get my life together but he's not
he's what drives me nuts in a lot of these mass shootings is how many times there
was warning signs like there was people that came out and said that he would constantly point up
to the tower and say that would be a great place to go up and shoot people from like if somebody says that you need
to tell somebody I I just covered a similar situation on my peripheral podcast where uh they were telling the
school officials I'm going to kill my fellow students and the school counselor said oh that's nice and sent them on
their way I mean it's pathetic there's so many times look what's the worst thing that can happen
um when I was in eighth grade I heard a kid jokingly say that he was going to kill
himself to another individual that one kid was getting picked on he kind of jokingly said to the guy hell
it'll be funny when I'm dead after I kill myself or something like that and it was like
whether it's a joke or not yeah I told a counselor and then they pull him down to the
office well guess what he was thinking about this he was actually thinking about
killing himself at school because of bullying and all that stuff and and that was enough to get the kids some
help and then later on he thanks you and in this scenario it's like if one of these people would have came forward and
said Charles doesn't seem like that bad of a guy but he keeps saying these weird
things about shooting people from a tower that maybe they go get him checked out
and then they find this tumor and if that is the cause of what happened then maybe they get help or they get
help for a mental illness or get help for the trauma that he faced he saw a doctor
child uh I think it was a psychiatrist at the University and he told that person
about his fantasy and they talked for a good two hours and that doctor said well we need to
talk again and he scheduled another appointment but of course Charles didn't show up to
the next appointment because he had other plans right but that's when the doctor needs to go to law enforcement
and say we need to do something especially you know an ex-marine and that's what
makes you really wander was it a mental illness was it some trauma as as a child or was it this
tumor what what was the real reason for these innocence that's where I look at it and I think you have a mix of
both nature and nurture his nurture was not good his childhood was not good his father was showed him that violence was
the answer to everything and the reason why his mother was living down the street and his father was on
the other side of the country was because back home the neighbors were calling the cops and saying someone's
going to die if you don't get here he's going to kill her because his father was
just beating the crap out of his mother so she moved across country and stayed with with Charles and his wife
for a bit and then got her own place and that's why she was there was escaping this domestic abuse this whole
environment but she walked into the arms of another devil to get to escape from one another
one and like you said you on some level you'd think that Charles Whitman would want to
protect his mother especially after she gets out of this abusive situation but again I mean I'm not a psychologist so I
don't know but the trauma that he could have faced as a child could have been too overwhelming
for possibly for him to and to your question you know do you choose this one child or do you choose the 17 victims I
would have preferred Charles just to go back and take it out on his father the person that started this whole chain of
events haven't changed my answer that's what I would prefer you just didn't give
me as if we could go back into time yes we're killing Charles Charles could do it himself if he likes and yeah with all
the guns with his ten hands all at once and we he could even shoot him from the tower
he said that his mom had lived a uh pathetic useless life uh just being beaten at the hands of this man so he I
feel he killed his mom because it was a mercy killing he was just like your your life is done you haven't lived
a life you've just been a victim so I'm going to end you and put you out of your
misery yeah I I actually think that he killed his mother and his wife just in case he lived through this
that he wouldn't have to see how they reacted to him afterwards does that make sense like he wouldn't
have to see the shame in their eyes because he's a mass murderer or the disgust that his wife would have
for him for committing these crimes I actually think that's I think you're right especially his wife because he has
no motivation to murder her there's nothing there there's no reason why so yeah it's it's just brutal but this is the
this is the case this is the story this is the shooting that I think started at all and I don't really
understand how this became a thing in America do you think it's a tool I don't think it's a tumor I think it was him
with a plan I I disregard the tumor it might have had a factor in it but I disregard the tumor myself why like
the fact that you said that the tumor might be a rumor the tumor might be a rumor
and I think possibly so and that would be to cover up the discharge his involvement
and the United States Marines but whether it's a tumor or not this was a horrible tragedy
and something that um and the biggest mass shooting in history as of 1966. foreign
I want to thank you for joining Us in the garage I've always been a fan of you and Aaron big Generation Y fan if
if somebody wants to check out your podcast well actually you have two pockets we
have the generation tell me about your two shows if you don't know about that show I don't I don't know what rock
you've been living under you can find us anywhere iTunes Stitcher all that stuff
uh when you talk about True Crime you have to talk about mental illness you have to talk about domestic abuse
but sometimes you can't really go really deep into it in lieu of the story so I started another podcast called the
peripheral where I interview listeners such as yourself that are listening right now about uh rape about
domestic abuse about mental illness about addiction uh just any story that is somebody that thinks they might be alone
and hopefully others will hear it and you'll know that it's not something on the peripheral it's something that
should be in the mainstream yeah and hopefully I can be a guest on your show that would be awesome
soon all right man uh I don't think I'm planning to see you until crime con next
year but until then we will we'll drink some more awesome thank you so much for having me
hopefully you guys enjoyed a little bit of the mash up this week check out our good buddies Justin and Aaron and their
podcast Generation Y it can be found anywhere iTunes any podcast app or you can check them out on the web the
generationwidepodcast.com if you'd like to hear Nick and Aaron's mashup that's going to be episode 291 on the
Generation Y podcast feed so check that out until next week be good be kind and don't shoot Nida
[Music] thank you [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Charles Whitman ////// 229

Part 1 of 1

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

In 1966 a former U.S. Marine took rifles and climbed atop the main building tower at the University of Texas and opened fire on the people below. This induced over 90 minutes of pure run for your life panic. Tonight on a very special episode of TCG the Captain has a Guinness and hangs out with Justin from the Generation Why podcast to discuss one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.

Check out Nic and Arron's Episode @ www.thegenerationwhypodcast.com

Beer Fund: https://truecrimegarage.com/home

Brief Summary

Charles Whitman's 1966 tower shooting is examined, focusing on his mental health and the tragic consequences of his actions.

Key points

The Letter of Intent. Charles Whitman writes a letter detailing his violent impulses and intentions.
The Do Not Disturb Sign. After killing his mother, Whitman places a sign on the door, creating a chilling scene.
The Texas Tower Shooting. On July 31, 1966, Charles Whitman commits a mass shooting from the University of Texas Tower.
The Brutality of the Shooting. The shooting lasted about 96 minutes, causing chaos and fear among the public.
The Officers' Dangerous Approach. Officers had to navigate through dead bodies to reach the shooter, risking their lives.
The Tumor's Role in Violence. A tumor found in Charles Whitman's brain raises questions about the causes of his actions.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I intend to kill her as painlessly as possible.

Whitman's chilling intention towards his wife.

4:34WatchNov 25, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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